5 things make a post

[truepenny]

1. Today is the launch day for Catherynne M. Valente's Palimpsest. If you want a taste, the short story from which the book came is here. Also, because Cat is seriously made of awesome, there is a trailer:

2. The vendetta of the universe against black-footed ferrets continues. First it was poisoned prairie-dogs, then plagiarism, and now plague. The ray of hope here is that the giant gerbils of Kazakhstan may help save them.

No, you read that right. The giant gerbils of Kazakhstan.

3. buymeaclue has a beautiful post about what horsemanship is. Hannah's posts regularly make me wish I had the time and the money and the guts for serious equestrianism, and this one is no exception. "There is a crack in everything," Leonard Cohen says. "It's how the light gets in."

4. Yesterday, matociquala induced an epiphany in me re: John Bellairs and The House with a Clock in its Walls.

5. ursulav makes me hurt myself laughing on a regular basis. This entry is an excellent representative sample. Also, it reminds me to hope that these pit bulls are continuing to prosper.

Comments

[reannon.livejournal.com]

I am going to invoke the Giant Gerbils of Kazakhstan as soon as I memorize how to spell it. :)

thank you

[themadblonde]

not for the giant gerbils, the idea of which I find very disturbing, but for the link to the lol dog post & to the post about the Vick pitbulls. I had only half read it before, & not only is it an excellent & enlightening article, but it mentions a canine/child service programme of which I'd never heard before, Paws for Tales. The idea of giving children confidence to read aloud by having them practice reading to dogs is both adorable & inspired. Thanks for pointing me in its direction.

[kate_nepveu]

I am not sure whether this makes me want to read the Bellairs or not. (The only thing of his I've read is _The Face in the Frost_, which I found very scary.) But a very cool insight, all the same.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Of the Bellairs I've read (which is not all of his work, but a fair portion, including The Face in the Frost), The House with a Clock in its Walls is the one that scared me most. fwiw.

[kate_nepveu]

. . . probably gonna pass on that one, then. Thanks.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.

[(Anonymous)]

I need to second (or third) the love of all things John Bellairs. It amuses me now when I read the classic ghost stories of James etc. and see the originals of all the creepy-crawlies that gave me nightmares when I read them in Bellairs's work. (Thinking specifically of the creature from James's "Count Magnus" and Bellairs's The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost--which I still own a copy of. Incidentally, it's right next to Melusine on my bookshelf. Small world, and all that.)

~Megan

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost is the one with Ensign French and the Unfortunate Traveller, isn't it? Because that's the other one of Bellairs' books that scared the living daylights out of me.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, it is. I first read it when I was about twelve, so of course I'd never seen the Count Magnus creature (cephalopod? I'm not even sure how to classify it) before. The image of the little dog with its skull sucked clean stayed with me for quite a while afterward...

~Megan